At least 15 people were killed after a man drove a truck through a New Orleans crowd early on New Year’s Day, the city coroner said Wednesday evening, and federal authorities are searching for additional possible suspects.
The brazen attack, which injured dozens more people, is being investigated by the FBI as an act of terrorism. It led to the postponement of a college football game and calls attention to security concerns in New Orleans, which is scheduled to host this year’s Super Bowl in a few weeks.
Around 3:15 a.m. local time, a van drove through New Year’s Eve revelers along Bourbon and Canal streets in New Orleans’ popular French Quarter.
The driver then got out of the vehicle and exchanged gunfire with police, who shot the suspect. Two police officers were also injured but are in stable condition, according to Anne Kirkpatrick, superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD).
Police initially said around 35 people were injured, some seriously, while 10 victims were pronounced dead at the scene.
A black flag with white letters lies on the ground, furled behind a pickup truck that a man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing and injuring a number of people, early Wednesday morning, January 1 2025. The FBI said they recovered an Islamic State group flag, black with white lettering, from the vehicle.
(AP Photo/Gérald Herbert)
The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen originally from Texas, and said it was seeking to determine Jabbar’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.
An Islamic State group flag was found inside the vehicle involved in the attack, the FBI said, along with weapons and a “potential” enhanced explosive device (IED).
“We don’t believe Jabbar is solely responsible,” Alethea Duncan, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said at a news conference. Duncan added that the FBI believed Jabbar was an Army veteran.
US President Joe Biden, speaking from Camp David on Wednesday evening, said he was informed by the FBI that the suspect had posted videos on social media hours before the attack indicating he had been inspired by the group Islamic State and had expressed “a desire to kill”. »
This undated mugshot provided by the FBI on Wednesday, January 1, 2025 shows Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar. (FBI via AP).
Guns and pipe bombs were also found in the vehicle, according to a Louisiana State Police intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. The devices, which were hidden in coolers, were wired for remote detonation, the bulletin said, and a matching remote control was discovered inside the vehicle.
Investigators reviewed video showing three men and a woman planting an improvised explosive device in connection with the car attack, according to the bulletin.
The FBI’s Houston field office said in a post on X shortly after 4 p.m. ET Wednesday that it was conducting law enforcement activities “related to this morning’s attack in New Orleans” in the North. of the city. The public was urged to avoid a cordoned off area around Hugh Road and North Crescent Peak Drive as specialist crews were expected to be on scene for “several hours”.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell called the killings a “terrorist attack.”
Get the latest national news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up to receive breaking news alerts sent directly to you as they happen.
Kirkpatrick said the driver was “determined to create the carnage and damage he caused.”
“It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as possible,” Kirkpatrick said.
Jabbar joined the U.S. Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
Terminals ready to be replaced before attack
The attack prompted officials to postpone the Sugar Bowl — a college football playoff game between Notre Dame and Georgia originally scheduled for Wednesday night — for 24 hours.
Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans is also scheduled to host the NFL Super Bowl on February 9.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said in a news conference Wednesday that he intends to issue an emergency declaration Thursday to “get all of our federal and local agencies to help prepare” for the Super Bowl as well as Mardi Gras, the annual party. A raucous celebration is expected to take place on the streets of New Orleans in early March.
Because of the attack, Landry said he released the statement a day early.
He then insisted that the Superdome and surrounding areas are “safe” as law enforcement continues to investigate the attack.
Emergency services respond to the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle crashed into a crowd on the canal and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.
(AP Photo/Gérald Herbert)
An emergency responder walks past a police barricade after a vehicle crashed into a crowd on Canal and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.
(AP Photo/Gérald Herbert)
But the incident also draws attention to the malfunction of the terminals installed on Bourbon Street 10 years ago.
An infrastructure package that was supposed to be rolled out before the Super Bowl in February planned to repair the terminals, according to Mayor Cantrell, but the fixes were not in place before Wednesday’s attack.
A backup plan that included parking police vehicles where bollards would normally be in place failed to prevent the attack because the van instead drove along the sidewalk, behind police cars, Kirkpatrick said.
“We did have a plan, but the terrorist foiled it,” she said.
Landry said implementing new “permanent” security measures in the wake of the attack would be a “top priority” ahead of the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.
Witnesses describe “pandemonium”
“When I got to work this morning, it was kind of pandemonium everywhere,” Derick Fleming, head bellboy at a downtown hotel, told the Associated Press. “There were a few bodies covered on the ground. The police were looking for bombs in trash cans.
Zion Parsons told NOLA.com that he and two friends were leaving a restaurant on Bourbon Street when he heard a “rush” and “thumping” and turned his head to see a vehicle speeding down the sidewalk toward them. He dodged the vehicle, but it hit one of his friends.
“I scream his name, I turn my head and his leg is twisted and contorted over and around his back. And there was nothing but blood,” Parsons said. The 18-year-old said he ran after hearing gunshots a short time later.
“When you walk down the street, you can just look and see bodies, just bodies of people, just bleeding, broken bones,” he said. “I just ran until I couldn’t hear anything.”
Investigators work the scene after a person drove a vehicle into a crowd, killing several people, earlier on Canal and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.
(AP Photo/Gérald Herbert)
Hours after the attack, several vans from the coroner’s office were parked on the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets, cordoned off by police tape, with crowds of dazed tourists standing, some trying to get their luggage through the maze of dams.
“We looked out our front door and saw caution tape and dead silence and it’s eerie,” said Tessa Cundiff, an Indiana native who moved to the French Quarter years ago. a few years ago. “That’s not why we fell in love, it’s sad.”
Elsewhere, life continues as normal in the city known to some for its motto which translates as “let the good times pass”.
Near where the truck stopped, some people were talking about the attack while others, dressed in Georgian uniforms, were talking about football. At a cafe a block away, people milled about for breakfast to the sound of upbeat pop music. Two blocks away, people were drinking at a bar, as if nothing had happened.
“To all the families of those who were killed, to all those who were injured, to all the people of New Orleans who are grieving today, I want you to know that I grieve with you,” Biden said at Camp David. “Our nation mourns with you. »
Biden added that the FBI was also investigating any potential links between the New Orleans attack and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas a few hours later. Las Vegas police said they were treating the incident, which killed one person inside the vehicle, as a potential terrorist act.
US President-elect Donald Trump expressed sympathy for the New Orleans victims in a statement on social media, but also said the attack proved his assertion that “the criminals who are coming are far worse than the criminals who we have in our country,” despite the fact that Jabbar was an American citizen.
“The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as it investigates and recovers from this act of pure evil!” » Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement released on X Wednesday afternoon that the news coming out of New Orleans was “horrible.”
“My heart goes out to the victims’ loved ones, those struggling to recover, and everyone affected by this senseless act of violence,” he said.
The attack is the latest example of using a vehicle as a weapon to carry out mass violence, a trend that has alarmed law enforcement and can be difficult to protect against.
– with files from The Associated Press